


Red Room

by ClaraxBarton



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Gen, Recovery, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, War Veteran Sam Wilson, frienship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24943603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/pseuds/ClaraxBarton
Summary: “Natasha grew up wanting a viper as a pet. Natasha drinks Russian tea unironically. Natasha thinks CrossFit is weak. She’s not the standard you can use to measure other people.”“Yeah,” Sam agrees, and his voice has a slight dreamy quality to it.He might be far enough away that Bucky can’t tip over his chair, but he’s not far enough away to keep his shin safe from Bucky’s booted foot.“Ow,” Sam glares.“She’s practically my sister. Don’t think about her with that look on your face.”“You realize that she’s like ten times scarier than you, right? You don’t intimidate me.”“I annoy you,” Bucky reminds him. “And I could annoy you a lot more.”
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson
Comments: 22
Kudos: 99





	Red Room

**Author's Note:**

> Beta read by the always amazing Ro!!

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Bucky stares at the phone in his hands, the screen dark, and thinks about what a fucking coward he is.

It’s one phone call.

Actually, it’s a thirteen-minute train ride and a five-block walk.

_ Or _ a phone call.

He can’t bring himself to do either one.

It’s beyond pathetic, and he is very,  _ excruciatingly _ , well aware of it.

With a sigh, Bucky puts the phone down and rubs his sweaty hands over the worn-thin knees of his jeans.

“Alright. Coffee break.”

Sam says the words quietly, calmly, with absolutely no judgement in his voice. 

Bucky glares at him, and Sam glares back.

“I’m  _ thirsty _ ,” Sam snarks. “And I want some caffeine. This ain’t even about you.”

Which, as they both know, is a flat-out lie.

It isn’t even a  _ good _ lie.

The only reason that Sam Wilson is sharing a couch with Bucky at four in the afternoon, each of them sitting at opposite ends, Sam so he can stretch his legs out and Bucky so he can curl into the cushions, is because of Bucky.

“Starbucks?” Sam gets to his feet.

Bucky swallows, sighs, and gets to his feet as well.

Sam picks up Bucky’s abandoned phone and holds it out until Bucky takes it and slips it into the right front pocket of his jeans. 

They put on their shoes - boots in Bucky’s case, gleaming black loafers in Sam’s - and wrap up in coats and scarves before leaving the apartment.

Sam lets him stew, which is both good and bad, and by the time they walk the two blocks to the nearest Starbucks, Bucky is ready to talk. 

Sort of.

“I can’t do it.”

“Okay,” Sam nods, as if it’s totally cool, as if he  _ cares _ . “The phone call or-?”

“Any of it. All of it. This is bullshit, Sam.  _ I’m _ bullshit.”

Sam’s lips twitch, but he doesn’t argue with Bucky or give him any shit, even though it’s clear he’s dying to.

“That’s fine, then. I mean, it’s kinda a huge step, and-”

“Calling my fucking sister is not a  _ huge _ step,” Bucky growled. “Going over to my ma’s for dinner is  _ not _ a huge step. It’s something normal fucking people do all the fucking time.”

Sam shrugs and steps up to place his order with the barista, ordering some kind of seasonal latte that sounded like a bizarre contradiction of flavors - juniper and caramel and citrus - and Bucky reluctantly asks for hot, non-caffeinated tea when both Sam and the barista give him expectant looks. 

Bucky is already on-edge and anxious enough - he doesn’t need to add anything bitter to his stomach, and he definitely doesn’t need caffeine right now.

Once they have their drinks in hand, Sam gestures Bucky towards an empty table that is both out of the way of foot traffic and yet close to the entrance. 

Bucky takes the seat against the wall, and Sam settles down across from him.

“You say normal people like they’re real,” Sam muses after burning his tongue on his weird drink.

Bucky looks around the Starbucks pointedly, at the hipsters and yuppies surrounding them.

Sam hooks a thumb towards a guy in a well-cut suit who looks so bland he might as well be in an insurance commercial targeted at white middle-class suburban families.

“You think that guy’s normal? What if I told you that he’s got three priors - all drug-related - is getting sued for not paying child support, and he works as the manager of a UPS store?”

“I’d tell you that your weirdly specific story doesn’t hold up well because he would never be hired at a UPS store with that kind of record. I can’t get hired at a UPS store, and the only thing on my record is a drunk and disorderly that’s ten years old.”

Sam rolls his eyes.

“Man, you  _ know _ what I’m trying to say. You can’t just assume that normal is a  _ thing _ , and you can’t assume that it’s the  _ right _ thing, or that it’s what you  _ need _ to be.”

“So what do I need to be?” Bucky asks after taking a scalding sip from his tea. It’s a point of pride that he doesn’t flinch or hiss away from the pain, not like Sam had when he had taken  _ his _ first sip.

“You need to be someone you’re okay being. And that’s up to  _ you _ , who that guy is, what he looks like, what he does… where he eats his meals and who he calls.”

“Fuck off,” Bucky sighs. “You’re really going to sit there and tell me it’s fine to dodge the only two people who  _ want _ to spend time with me?”

“Hey,” Sam adopts a deeply wounded expression. “I fucking  _ love _ you, Bucky Barnes, and I want to spend every single moment of my life with you.”

Bucky idly wonders if he can get away with shoving Sam’s chair over onto its side, but Sam knows him well enough by now not to trust the calculating look in Bucky’s eyes and scoots his chair safely out of reach.

“You don’t care about me. You just care about making Natasha happy, and you’re smart enough to know that she thinks it’s  _ wonderful _ that we get along so well.”

Sam grins, wide and open and utterly disarming. Bucky hates how hard it is to dislike him.

“It  _ is _ wonderful that we get along so well. But also, I did get introduced to you first. By ninety seconds.”

“So, what you’re saying is I have a prior claim? Because I surrender it to her. Gladly. Fuck, I’ll pay her to get you away from me.”

It’s mostly in jest, which Sam knows.

After five months of putting up with Bucky, Sam knows when his snark is genuine and when it is merely a shield, and he knows when it is both.

They had met at a Whole Foods, of all places. Natasha had dragged Bucky along with her, ostensibly to get him invested in feeding himself more than frozen meals and remind him that actual,  _ fresh _ food was a thing available to him now that he was out of the military. 

He and Natasha had been in the wine aisle, arguing about which wine to use in the coq au vin Bucky had somehow been conned into making that night, and out of nowhere, Sam had stepped up and delivered  _ his _ opinion in a soft, confident southern drawl that had left Bucky glaring at him and Natasha… not glaring. Not glaring at  _ all _ .

Even having known her his whole life, Bucky still finds Natasha is capable of surprising him, and that day, when her cheeks actually turned the slightest, most subtle shade of pink when Sam agreed with her, Bucky had been surprised. 

Natasha didn’t like  _ people _ . Humans, as a rule, irritated her. 

That she had an instant and, at least to Bucky, obvious attraction to a stranger who had stuck his nose in their business, still boggles Bucky’s mind.

She had shoved Bucky in front of her.

“This is Bucky, he’s my roommate - he’s hopeless at everything.”

Sam had just smiled, had held out his hand and patiently waited for Bucky to finish attempting to glare Natasha into a painful, early grave, and then shook his hand with a quick, firm handshake that had none of the hallmarks of alpha male posturing.

“Sam Wilson. I’m good at a lot of things.”

Bucky had rolled his eyes at Natasha’s expectantly raised eyebrows, and at the Air Force sweater Sam had been wearing.

“Couldn’t get into the Coast Guard?” Bucky had sneered, because, well, professional pride and also irritation at a stranger telling him he was wrong, and also… Bucky was an asshole.

Sam had lifted his eyebrows and given Bucky a slow, cocky smirk that he  _ had _ to know made Bucky want to punch him.

“Don’t tell me  _ you _ ever cut off all that gorgeous hair to join up?”

Bucky had been growing his hair out since his last deployment, and with everything that happened with  _ that _ clusterfuck, it had had a while to grow in and had been long enough to tuck behind his ears, long enough to have a bit of a wave to it, long enough to be the same length as Natasha’s bobbed haircut. 

“He was in the Army. No excuses to be made. I’m Natasha.”

_ Natasha _ . Not even Natalia.

Bucky had given her a look - the  _ what would your grandmother say _ ? look that predictably had Natasha glaring at him.

“I’ll forgive him,” Sam had said, and grinned as he held out his hand to her. 

It had devolved from there, Sam accompanying them through the store as both he and Natasha finished their grocery shopping and Bucky trailed after them like a sullen teenager, with his hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie, because  _ who the fuck had a meet cute in a Whole Foods _ ?

By the time they had made it to the check-out aisle, Sam had an invite to dinner and Natasha had a look on her face that Bucky had only ever seen once before - the day they had met, as four-year-olds in Madame Molotov’s ballet class, and they had shoved each other out of the line as they waited their turn to cross demonstrate  _ jetes _ . Madame Molotov had snapped at them, had held them after and made them clean up after the class, and they had shoved each other again, until Natasha found the ticklish spot under Bucky’s left arm, and then it had turned into all-out war, with hair-pulling and kicking and biting, until Madame Molotov came back in to seperate them. Natasha had been delivered to her parents with a stern reprimand, Bucky to his mother with the same, and Natasha had smirked at him and had that look in her eyes.

It was the  _ I’m keeping him _ look.

“Plus,” Sam says, dragging Bucky back to the present, “Natasha wants to spend time with you. Kind of why she asked you to be her roommate, you know? Why she asks you to go out with her… with us…”

“I get it,” Bucky growls, and then sits back in his chair to broodily sip at his tea.

Sam lets him.

Bucky hates how smart Sam is.

“It’s just,” Bucky sits forward, “it’s just that I’m not the same fucking guy? I’m not the- I’m not  _ him _ .”

Sam nods, understanding. Because Sam’s always understood. That first night, after he helped Bucky wash the dishes and subtly declined Natasha’s even more subtle invitation to stay the night, he had slipped Bucky his card and invited him to join the therapy group he led down at the VA center.

But there’s understanding, and then there’s  _ understanding _ .

“You know… Natasha still loves you, Even with the whole… millennial boho look you’re cultivating.” Sam waved a hand in a vague gesture that was probably meant to encompass Bucky’s now shoulder-length hair and his skinny jeans, large boots, thick, handknit sweater and the scarf around his neck that really is too thin to actually do much against the cold.

Sam is, ridiculously, immune to Bucky’s glares.

“Natasha grew up wanting a viper as a pet. Natasha drinks Russian tea unironically. Natasha thinks CrossFit is  _ weak _ . She’s not the standard you can use to measure other people.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees, and his voice has a slight dreamy quality to it.

He might be far enough away that Bucky can’t tip over his chair, but he’s not far enough away to keep his shin safe from Bucky’s booted foot.

“ _ Ow _ ,” Sam glares.

“She’s practically my sister. Don’t think about her with that look on your face.”

“You realize that she’s like ten times scarier than you, right? You don’t intimidate me.”

“I  _ annoy _ you,” Bucky reminds him. “And I could annoy you a lot  _ more _ .”

“Fine. You win. Whatever.”

They continue to drink in silence for a few minutes, until it’s too much for Bucky.

“They’re huggers,” he mutters.

Sam raises his eyebrows, obviously a little lost, but interested and willing to let Bucky explain himself without prompting.

“My ma. My sister. They’re huggers. They’re going to…” Bucky waves his hand vaguely.

“Hug you?” Sam supplies.

Bucky glares at him, but yes, that had been the word he wanted.

“I’m not  _ him _ ,” he repeats.

“So tell them that. Tell them your boundaries, man. They love you. Don’t- don’t give me that look, Barnes. They  _ love _ you. And yeah, clearly that’s indicative of some severely bad taste, but I don’t think we should hold it against them. My point is this - you enlisted right out of high school. You were  _ seventeen _ when you went in, Barnes. You weren’t even a man then. First time you came home after a deployment, were you the same as before?”

“No,” Bucky sighs, because he hadn’t been. But-

“So, people aren’t static. They change. Experience changes you - it’s called adaptation, Barnes. You changed because you  _ had _ to, because you had to fucking survive. So what - you’re not the same punk ass kid who enlisted in the Army. You aren’t the same idiot who came back from his first deployment thinking he was hot shit because he hadn’t died. You aren’t the guy who sat at your mom’s table after killing a guy for the first time. You’re a long way from that guy. We all are. But why the fuck is the guy you are now less deserving of love than that guy?”

“You know why!” Bucky hisses, because fuck Sam. 

Sam looks at him with his dark, steady gaze that knows too much but still doesn’t know enough.

“You’re right,” Bucky finally growls. “I did adapt to survive - and that guy? The guy I had to become? I don’t want him anywhere near my sister. Or my ma.”

It’s brutally honest, but it doesn’t surprise Sam. 

Bucky has found that it is very difficult to surprise Sam.

Sam takes another sip of his coffee, refusing to engage, because he knows that Bucky just wants to argue, to twist Sam’s words and prove how unworthy he is of the life he’s hiding from.

Bucky angrily sips his tea.

He should have ordered a coffee.

“So, text?” Sam suggests.

Bucky sighs and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

“Yeah. Text.”

He finds Becca in his contacts and thumbs over to the running message chat between them.

**Doing ok. Tell Ma I love her. Still at Nat’s place. Take care of yourself.**

It’s the exact same thing Bucky sent last week.

And the week before.

And the week before.

And, same as always, Becca’s reply is nearly instantaneous.

**We love you.**

She doesn’t ask for more, doesn’t push him. Not after the first time she had tried it.

Bucky feels his throat grow tight, and he tries to clear it and then takes another sip of his tea.

“You good?” Sam asks.

Not trusting himself to speak yet, Bucky just nods.

Sam relaxes back in his own chair and, in silence, they both watch the world pass by outside.

-o-

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**Author's Note:**

> Honesty to On:  
> This was supposed to be the prologue to a... very porny Steve/Bucky/Clint fic featuring established Steve/Clint and Bucky sort of slotting in and learning to love himself again. Natasha is a burlesque dancer, as is Steve - and it's a skinny Steve, fyi, and Clint is a bartender at the club where they perform and... well. You can guess what happens next. Or I could write it. Let me know if that's a thing you want? It WOULD mean the rating changes from T to E so. Yeah. This could just be a standalone Bucky recovery thing with awesome human Sam Wilson as his BFF or... it could lead to more.


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